Major Housing Nonprofit Turns to Xerox for Managed IT Services – And Grows Its Capacity to Serve At-Risk People

About the Client

Major East Coast-based nonprofit with more than 15 geographically dispersed locations, the organization supports individuals with housing, medical, and legal support services.

Case study overview

When a major American nonprofit started growing at a record rate, the organization’s IT resources rapidly proved insufficient in the face of this increased demand.

All too quickly, these challenges started to impact their critical mission: to serve people with safe housing, legal resources, much-needed healthcare, and other services. But where to begin? The team already had a good IT department – but they were working at capacity and staffing up wasn’t feasible cost-wise. Add in aging infrastructure and processes that needed modernization, and it was clear that Managed IT Services was the winning strategy.

Our experts were excited to step in and provide that Managed IT Services solution set: external experts, including two virtual Chief Information Officers, dedicated to getting the organization’s IT infrastructure, processes, software and results back on track.

As part of our initial onboarding, our team formally reviewed every aspect of the nonprofit’s information technology approach. Three core focus areas emerged:

Customer Service

As the nonprofit’s locations and clientele doubled, helpdesk tickets piled up. Without a triage system in place, there was no easy way to address issues according to severity. That translated to unacceptable levels of downtime, compliance risk, and potential reputational impact.

By implementing a tiering system, our team was able to reduce this nonprofit’s downtime to a third of what it was – and eliminated their risk of federal fines for unacceptable downtime levels, a consequence for recipients of government funding. A private chat space between our IT experts and the nonprofit’s IT team served as an open line of communication to quickly review and address cases – especially those incidents that were taking too long to close.

Security

A substantive look at security vulnerabilities resulted in 24-hour monitoring and management, including additional hardening against attempted intrusions. In particular, we focused on shoring up the organization’s endpoint protection, ensuring that no matter where staff logs in, powerful security measures safeguard their work, personal client information, and other proprietary data. A more sophisticated layered approach to security has meant greater confidence in the organization – and makes compliance with cybersecurity insurance requirements much simpler.

Infrastructure and Software

From experience, we knew it’s much easier to achieve efficiency and maintain security with equipment that’s modern, fast and capable. That’s why we began with refreshing equipment that included laptops, desktops, wireless access points, and firewalls. By implementing higher-speed connections and automated failover for VPN, we ensured that staff can always access the best possible Internet connection.

Onsite clean-out exercises ensured that physical equipment met the right standards, any needed repairs were completed and even small details – like neatly organizing tangled cables – were addressed. We’re now updating and virtualizing servers to minimize the nonprofit’s footprint and improve its resilience in the event of a disruptive incident or disaster.